A fascinating author event last night with Lillian Faderman discussing her new book "The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle" at the San Francisco Public Library. Her sweeping account from 1948 to today is presented as public history (without an emphasis on academic analysis) and includes many personal stories of the more than 100 interviews she conducted.

She discussed how she thought lesbians became more collaborative and responsive to gay men due to the AIDS crisis when the need for care was so great. (In the 1970s a number of lesbians had become "separatist" believing gay or straight men were too invested in male privilege to understand or support feminism).

It was an interesting perspective for me. My experience was that gay men became more responsive to and appreciative of women because so many stepped forward to help in time of community crisis. Lesbians especially played a fundamental and critical role in AIDS advocacy and health care. As a result of their own experiences, many lesbians guided gay men with AIDS through the bureaucratic and often unresponsive health care system.

Clearly, the community came together with both sets of experiences -- gay and lesbian -- contributing to overall well-being and to their own sense of selves.